


The Way You Look At Me

by AGreatAndTerribleBeing (PhoenixFoxfire)



Category: Shelter (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2453732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFoxfire/pseuds/AGreatAndTerribleBeing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way he would look at Shaun and make him feel like he mattered to him. And mattering to Zach was a prize highly coveted. To be someone so important to Zach was more than Shaun could've ever hoped for.</p><p>Set during the movie, Shaun's reaction after Zach breaks up with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way You Look At Me

Shaun wasn't afraid to admit that he'd cried after he'd gotten out of Zach's car, after Zach had driven away. Leaving Shaun behind.

It was funny, how Zach had told him not to get "emotional and faggy" when Zach himself was sitting in the driver's seat, doing just that.

Well. It would've been funny if it wasn't meant to be an insult. If it wasn't meant as a way for Zach to get Shaun out of his car.

If Zach hadn't been breaking up with him.

Shaun had headed up to his room, out to the futon on the deck where they'd first kissed. He took a seat, contemplating getting a beer, but honestly, he knew that alcohol would only make him feel worse, and he was that much of a responsible adult at least to not do that to himself. 

He couldn't get Zach's words out of his head, as he slouched over his knees, covering his face with his hands. A fantasy? Is that what Zach thought he was to Shaun? He had no doubts that Jeannie had put the words into his head, because Shaun had done his best in the time they'd been together to show Zach that he wasn't a fantasy. He meant something. Zach already had enough issues with people depending on him for whatever they needed, Shaun had wanted to show him that he could depend on Shaun instead. That Shaun didn't just want to take from him. 

Shaun hadn't come here looking for this. Actually, he'd wanted to get away from relationships. Hadn't even wanted to have a fling. But then he saw Zach, and really, he should've remembered that crush he'd always had on the younger man. The age difference was there, but it wasn't so big that it was disgusting for Shaun to have liked Zach a few years ago.

Illegal, maybe. But he'd never done anything about it.

But now Zach was older, and he'd grown into a man before his time, really. Shaun liked the man he'd become. Loved him. He'd been discovering that in the past few weeks, when he'd let Zach in on this little crush, when Zach showed him that the feeling had always been mutual. Being with Zach, watching him with Cody, watching him take up all the responsibilities he shouldn't have to have...All of it had made Shaun fall even more for Zach. He'd come here looking to get away from love and instead he'd fallen back into it with the one guy he'd always wanted it with. So maybe that was a fantasy, but it wasn't...it wasn't a fling, it wasn't something Shaun wanted to just be over and done with just like that.

Shaun made a soft pained noise as he remembered that it _was_ over and done with just like that. Zach had just made it so.

Shaun had been planning on making it work. Before all of this, he was just going to go back to LA and live under his new lease, but after Zach, he had thought long and hard about how to keep him, how he could get out of his lease, or make Zach come with him, or make a long-distance thing work (after all, LA wasn't too far from San Pedro, it would be worth it until a more permanent solution could be reached). He had been serious when he told Zach that Zach could come with him back to LA.

Zach. This...light in his life, to be incredibly cliche (oh, was the writer in him ever ashamed of that). He hadn't been in the best of places when he'd come here. His and Benji's breakup hadn't exactly been neat and clean. Expected, yes, but messy. And he hated coming back to the Bluffs. But then Zach showed up at his back door, literally, and Shaun had started to feel more at home. The more time he spent with Zach, the more he found more reasons to admire him. To stare. To love. The way Zach never said no to taking Cody, because he loved that boy like a son, there was no denying that. The way he supported himself in this quiet way, never complaining about work. The way he found time to relax in the waves, never resisting spending a few hours in the surf. The joy he found in art, and also the sadness and pain and anger, the way he used art as an outlet, the way his art could convey everything about him.

The way he would look at Shaun and make him feel like he mattered to him. And mattering to Zach was a prize highly coveted. To be someone so important to Zach was more than Shaun could've ever hoped for.

And now he says he doesn't want it. That Shaun isn't important anymore. And okay, that's a blow, that's...more than a blow. 

Maybe the writer in him liked to romanticize everything, but he'd liked to think it might've been a more...permanent thing. The way they'd bonded, the way Zach trusted Shaun with Cody, with his art, with his secrets.

He'd wanted it to be more permanent.

Shaun laid down on the futon, curled up on one side, trying to remember what it felt like to have Zach next to him, but the night air was too brisk, and it dispelled any hint of warmth.

But he could still see the way Zach had looked at him before he'd leaned in to kiss him. And he could picture every moment spent in his bed. On the beach. In the kitchen. Anywhere they'd been. He knew that Zach wanted him, too. That Zach cared about him.

So tomorrow he'd call. And he'd call every day after, for the next week. Until he was supposed to head back to LA.

He could only hope Zach picked up.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me tell you how not confident at all I am about posting this because I'm just getting back in the swing of writing things. But I liked it, and it was just meant to be a short little thing, so I'm alright with posting it. Kudos, comments, much appreciated.


End file.
